Space and Time Issue 121 (4 page)

I grab the bottle, preventing her from pouring. “Hey, I’m Drew. I’m your brother.”

“Don’t you even know what you did to your...self?” She points at my head.

“What are you taking about?”

“The patterns of electrical impulses in our brain, the neural connections that make up our consciousness, are disrupted by the swap. Another person’s memories are superimposed over them, effectively rewriting the brain with a new personality. But the process isn’t permanent. Eventually the imprinted memories will fade, and the personality of whoever’s body this is, will return. As for my brother, his memories will resurface in his own body, wherever it is. Probably prison, I imagine.”

“But what happens to me?”

“If your current memories are swapped back into Drew’s body in time, they’ll stick. But it might be too late already. You’ve been carrying these memories for longer than usual. No, more likely than not this will end with you forgetting everything that happened tonight from the moment Drew’s brain patterns were scanned into this body.” She shakes her head. “What were you thinking? I told you to stay away from that swapmeat.” Lena was never one to pass up an opportunity for an I-told-you-so.

If I’m not really Drew, who, or what, am I? I feel like myself, I have all of Drew’s memories, but if Lena is right my mind is merely an imprint of Drew’s consciousness, a superimposed photocopy destined to fade away to nothingness.

“If I turn myself in,” I say, “how much time am I looking at?”

“With all the criminals exploiting this new tech?” She sips at her overfull shot glass. “Three to five years, minimum. But I know a lawyer–and this is Drew’s first offense.”

I square my shoulders. “I can’t go to the cops.”

“You have to. It’s for your own good.”

At one time I might have listened, but I know now that Lena cares nothing about what happens to me, the person standing in front of her. Her only concern is finding her brother’s body.

“I can fix this,” I say. I’ll find a way to swap back into my body and preserve my memories of tonight. And I’ll find Natalie so I can help her too.

* * *

When I enter my apartment using Lena’s spare swipecard, part of me expects cops to come swarming out of my bedroom. Instead, as I hoped after reading the morning’s news, I find a single man reclining on my loveseat with a link-pad in his lap.

It’s me. My own body.

“You must be Drew!” He stands and proffers his hand. “I’m Enrique.”

My own handshake feels strange to me. It’s surreal seeing my body move about of its own volition, hearing my voice coming from someone else. It’s like watching a holo of myself. My body’s paunch is noticeable and I make a mental note to do more sit-ups.

Tony enters right behind me and Enrique’s eyes widen. “You’re...?”

“Tony.”

“Ah yes,” he says, “I remember you from the swapmeat, gorgeous.”

“How–how did you get away?” I ask him. I had read the morning’s e-dition describing the fiasco at the raid–which is why I chanced coming here–but the details are important if I’m going to have any shot of getting out of this mess.

Enrique sets the link-pad on the coffee table and flicks back to the front page. The headline reads “COP SWAP” and the holo-clip shows three nude women and a naked man with strategic mosaicing.

“The officers broke into the apartment and charged right through the neural arch. Someone triggered the lights while four of them were in the Blue Room,” Enrique says. “One minute there are four cops, guns drawn, standing over us. Next thing, the lights blink and three naked chicks and a dude are screaming at us to freeze while the ‘cops’ suddenly make a run for it. We followed them out in the confusion and grabbed all the duffels. We made it to the park and matched IDs to faces as well as we could. I went to the address on your driver’s license.”

Relief washes over me. This confirms that there’s no evidence linking me to the party.

“So everyone got away?” Tony asks.

“Except for those four bodies the cops were stuck in,” Enrique says.

“So what do we do now?” I ask.

“We wait it out until next month’s swapmeat,” Enrique says. Although he’s addressing me, Enrique can’t keep his eyes off Tony. I’m disconcerted at the open lust on my own face. I imagine that this is what Lena meant when she said I’d been “leering” at Tony.

“Waiting isn’t an option,” I say. I explain what Lena told me about the temporary nature of our overlaid brain patterns.

“I can’t... I don’t want to forget anything,” Tony says.

“Me neither,” I say. I think about the kiss on the fire escape, that perfect moment with Natalie’s body. Although it’s only been twelve hours, the thought of losing those memories, losing who I am, right now, at this very moment, terrifies me. “I can’t explain it, but I already feel like a different person than the guy who walked into that swapmeat.”

“I hear you,” Enrique says. “I wonder what it would be like, waking up, not being able to remember anything from the past few days. I bet it’s like going on a bender. You don’t remember half of it, but you know you had a blast.” He winks at Tony. “Just live in the moment is what I always say.”

I feel an irrational twinge of jealousy. This is not Natalie, I remind myself. “She’s” a man. But I have a responsibility to protect Natalie’s body, don’t I?

“Last night, all of us who escaped the swapmeat agreed to check in on a message board to find each other and sort things out,” Enrique says. “So we should be able to track down our own bodies.”

“Fat lot of good that does us with no way to swap into them,” Tony says.

“Did you sign onto the message board already?” I ask.

“I was just about to.”

“Don’t. That’s exactly the sort of thing the cops will be looking for,” I say. “As for the swapping, maybe my sister can help. She must have contacts with some of the organizers, or at least someone with access to the tech.” And now that I’ve secured my real body, I think she’ll be more inclined to help.

“In the meantime, we should stick together,” I say. I want to keep my body close, and I need to keep an eye on Natalie’s body as well. “You both can stay here with me while we sort this out. Tony, you should take the bedroom.”

“That’s an awfully big bed for one person,” Enrique says to Tony with a smirk.

Tony rolls his beautiful blue eyes, but seems amused.

“Enrique and I will share the pullout couch,” I say firmly.

* * *

When I return from visiting Lena, I find Tony playing holo-games at the computer in the living room.

“How’d it go?” he asks. He clicks off the game.

“Lena’s contact knows where a set of portable swaplights are stored. She’s dropping his fee off at their usual rendezvous now.” I think about all the overtime I’ll have to work to pay Lena back–if I still have a job after all this. I had Enrique call the office to tell them I’d be working from home for a week.

“Can we pick up the swaplights today?” Tony says.

“No, later this week, after Lena confirms the location is secure.”

“Is that necessary? Sounds a little paranoid,” Tony says.

“Best to play it safe under the circumstances. The bodies of four cops are still missing and the authorities are taking this personally. They’ve been rounding up everyone from that stupid message board. “

“Where’s Enrique?” Tony says.

I hated to let my body out of my sight, but on our way back from Lena’s place, I had suggested Enrique pick up some beer at the corner grocery so I could talk to Tony alone. I dreaded having this conversation with him, but there was no avoiding it.

I take a seat next to him on the couch. Tony’s careless about dressing, always forgetting that he’s in a woman’s body. His shirt is undone to the third button, and he has a habit of leaning forward, hands on knees, when listening.

“What’s wrong? You seem upset,” Tony says. He twirls his hair around his index finger, a Natalie-gesture that throws me off. I’ve been seeing more of Natalie in Tony lately. I wonder whether Tony’s personality is beginning to fade.

I pull my link-pad from my jacket pocket.

“This is an article Lena just finished for tomorrow’s e-dition. You should see it.” I hand it to Tony, who reads it aloud.

“‘Yesterday’s subway fatality has been identified as a swapmeater who escaped from Saturday night’s bungled police raid of a sex party in Old Chelsea.’” Tony looks up at me.

“Keep going.”

Tony reads, brow furrowed, and a moment later his face smoothes into shock. I had hoped it was just a coincidence, that the Anthony Washington named in the article wasn’t this Tony.

“Oh God.” He drops the link-pad to the sofa. “I’m dead? I’m dead.”

“Your body is dead,” I say. “But you’re still here.” I put my hand on his shoulder.

“Whoever was in my body...he jumped in front of a train? Why would he kill himself?”

“You don’t know it was a suicide. It could have been an accident,” I say. Or murder, depending on how one looked at it. They might never know who was inside the body and his or her state of mind.

“Oh no.” Tony covers his face. “It definitely was suicide.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I’m on some strong meds for depression. I guess the poor bastard in my body wouldn’t have known that. Who knows how the mind transfer affected him?”

“It’s going to be okay, Tony.”

“How? I’m dead!”

I gently brush the hair out of his teary eyes. “I’m so sorry,” I say. With Tony’s real body gone, all that remains of him is here, in Natalie’s form. Eventually that too will be gone. This was a death sentence. I pull him into a hug.

“We can keep swapping you before your consciousness fades,” I say. “That should keep your neural patterns intact. In theory, we should be able to keep you alive indefinitely.”

He shakes his head. “When I went to that swapmeat, I wanted to experience what it felt like to be someone else, to wear a different body, a different gender. But just for fun, just for a short time,” he says. “No, it’s all over for me. Tony Washington is dead.”

“Hey, you are Tony Washington.” I wipe at the tears on his cheek with my thumb. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out together.”

“Drew...” Tony looks up and in a moment his mouth brushes against mine. Tony’s lips feel soft, salty with tears.

He pulls away, his eyes wide. “I’m sorry,” Tony says.

“There’s nothing to apolo–”

“Am I interrupting?” Enrique says from the doorway.

Tony stands, looks back and forth from Enrique to me, and rushes into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

“I see he’s taking the news well,” Enrique says. He drops a six-pack on the coffee table with a loud thunk. “Good job comforting him.”

“That was a mistake,” I say. “He just needs some time alone.”

Enrique pops opens a beer, takes a sip, and stares at the bedroom door. “The last thing Tony needs right now is time alone.”

“I’m not going in there and neither are you. He’s distraught, confused.”

Enrique stares at me. “You’re the one who’s confused.”

He wears an irritated expression that I’ve never seen before on my own face, and his words give me pause, make me wonder whether the personality of whoever owns this body might be creeping in.

He grabs the six-pack, opens the bedroom door and disappears inside.

I expect Tony to throw him out at any moment, but minutes pass and the door remains closed.

Shit. I punch the sofa cushion.

I pull my phone from my pocket and work up the courage to dial Natalie’s home number. I had managed to make it back to my own apartment after the swapmeat. Maybe Natalie had done the same. The line rings a few times and I’m just about to hang up when a strange female voice answers.

“Hello?” she says.

“Natalie?”

There’s a long pause. “I’m sorry, you have the wrong number.”

“Natalie, wait. This is Drew. From work.”

“Drew? I didn’t recognize your voice.”

“I didn’t recognize yours either. I think we both know why.” I let that hang between us for a moment. We have a bad connection–the line crackles.

“You were there that night?” she whispers.

“We have the same problem, but I have the solution.”

There’s an extended pause. “We should meet,” she says.

* * *

I wait until a police car slowly cruising past the Church’s Fried Chicken rounds the block before I go inside. I wonder why Natalie chose this place until I see it’s empty save for a woman alone in one of the booths and an oblivious teen at the register watching a video on his link-pad.

The woman is short and heavy, in a black tank top and white miniskirt I recognize as Natalie’s. The clothes are too tight for her current body; the top pushes her breasts into odd fleshy mushrooms. Her short brown hair is badly bleached to an approximation of Natalie’s usual color, and she’s wearing too much makeup.

She raises a hand. “Drew?”

I take a breath, forcing a smile as I approach her. “Natalie. You look good.”

“Your new body must be blind,” she says in a deep, raspy voice. She smirks as I slide in across from her, eyeing my new body with an expression I’d always longed to see from her. But it isn’t Natalie’s face gazing at me. I study the wall menu to avoid staring at her for a moment.

“Drew–” She breaks into a hacking cough.

“That sounds bad,” I say. I signal for water but the kid at the counter ignores me.

“I hardly ever smoke, but this body has these cravings. All the fucking time.” She clears her throat with a rattling wheeze. “You said you could help?”

“First of all, don’t worry. Your body’s safe.”

Instead of thanking me, she narrows her eyes. “What do you mean, ‘it’s safe’? What, are you holding it hostage?”

“It isn’t in police custody, is what I mean.”

“So how long have you known where it is?”

“Since the raid,” I admit.

“And you didn’t call me?”

“I didn’t know how to help you before. Now I’ve found a way to swap us back into our own bodies.”

“Thank God,” she says. Finally, I see the gratitude I’d been expecting.